Chapter 25 — Summer After the Rain

Because the theater's electricity was cut off to repair the lines, the group decided to show the movie outdoors on the lawn behind the theater, right along the riverbank. Minh set up a screen made of white fabric stretched between two tree trunks, his hands pulling each corner of the fabric until it was flat under the fading sunset. Hau borrowed a generator from a car repair shop and connected the wires in a tangled but surprisingly neat manner. Children sit on prepared mats, run around and play before showtime, and adults carry plastic chairs and arrange them in uneven rows.

Comedies make the whole riverbank laugh, the laughter spreads far and wide with the night wind. When it came to the flood part in the original movie list, Linh did not show it. She chose a light summer movie instead, so that everyone could have an evening without having to relive the pain that was so familiar.

Minh asked her if she was afraid that people would forget, as she kept avoiding heavy footage. Linh said remembering doesn't have to hurt every time you repeat it. Theaters also cannot show just one movie, telling only one story forever.

In the middle of the afternoon, a small boat carrying people from the south bank arrived, its oars gently waving on the dark water. They brought with them a photo of Linh's father saving them in the past. The photo was yellowed but carefully wrapped in a plastic bag. An old lady placed the photo next to the projector, her voice trembling, saying they wanted to return his name.

When the last film of the evening appeared - a short documentary featuring the image of Linh's mother on the night of the flood that Linh did not know would be shown - the entire lawn fell silent. Linh cried among hundreds of people, unable to hold back anymore. Minh stood behind the screen, making a "crying" sign at her. Hau, standing nearby, thought he was signaling a technician, so he immediately increased the speaker volume to maximum. The sound of rain in the video was too loud in the quiet night, but no one complained, as if everyone needed that sound louder to fill the silence in their hearts.

After the movie, a man who used to work at the South Bank warehouse stepped up to the front of the crowd, his voice shaking but clear. He said he had no new evidence, only one thing he had kept in his heart for eighteen years: Linh's father had returned to get a list of households that had not yet evacuated, even though at that time he could have safely left in an ambulance. He saw Mr. Khai almost being swept away by the water, but could not pull him out because he was holding a child in his hand.

Linh asked who the child was. The man pointed to Mrs. Nam standing quietly at the back of the crowd. She bowed her head, her hand clutching the old towel tightly, unable to say a word. Linh doesn't know how many people her father saved that night, but she knows one thing for sure: he did not abandon anyone.

After that story, people began to voluntarily sign a petition to preserve the theater on the spot, passing around a bunch of paper and a few pens. More than three hundred signatures were collected in just one night. Some people signed with their left hand because their right hand was injured from the old flood. Some people asked their children to write for them because their eyesight was blurred. Bo Nam Company, even if it wants to, cannot say that this is an asset that no one needs anymore.

Mai instructs everyone not to get parasites, clearly states the address and contact phone number to ensure legality, and holds a stack of blank papers in her hand in case there is no space. Hau distributed pens but kept giving the wrong large markers to children, causing one boy's signature to be as big as a line of paper. Ms. Nam said that it can still be considered trust, no matter how strange the signature is.

Minh cleaned up the screen after the crowd had subsided, Linh folded up the mat. The two of them fell onto the grass because they were entangled with electric wires across the path. She said he was the only person who could turn a tragedy into an industrial accident. Minh said he was trying to stay romantic in the middle of an emotionally heavy night.

“Your romance needs insurance,” Linh replied, brushing grass off her shirt.

He looked at her, smiled. Above them, the sky was no longer raining, only a few stars peeked out from behind the fading clouds. The people are leaving with their own stories, and Ha Vang for the first time has a record that cannot be easily erased: more than three hundred names, more than three hundred silent testimonies.

The conservation application was sent to the district along with the testimony file the next morning, a thick stack of documents that Mai stayed up all night to complete. Linh had to meet with each representative, patiently explaining that the theater was not asking for privileges but for time to change its operating model. One person asked who would be financially responsible if the theater did not make a profit. She replied that the community fund would bear the committed portion, and the right to check the books belonged to everyone who contributed.

Phuc sent a written protest but did not request cancellation of the application, an implicit concession that everyone recognized. He wrote that the company once underestimated the people's attachment to this land. Linh read that sentence and didn't know if it should be considered an apology. Mai said don't give names to other people's words when they haven't called them themselves, leave time to answer, don't rush to assign meaning to a vague sentence.

Minh fixed the sound system for the next show, sweat beaded on his forehead from struggling all afternoon, and accidentally discovered that the old speaker had a piece of tape stuck inside for many years that no one had noticed. That was Linh's father's voice instructing children to use the screening room as a shelter during heavy rain. Not directly related to the flood, but it shows that he had prepared the theater as a place open to the community long before the disaster occurred.

Linh listened to the tape alone late at night, crouching in the dark projection room, with only the small light from the playing speaker. Dad said if the power goes out, use a flashlight; If you're scared, sit next to someone else; If anyone asks who is responsible, answer that everyone is responsible. She didn't know how far he had applied those last words on the fateful night of the flood, but for the first time she heard him speak in his own voice, not through anyone else's words, and that voice was warmer than she had ever imagined in the fading memories of an eight-year-old child.

She brought the tape to the lobby to share with the group. Mom sat next to her quietly, Minh fixed the speaker, Hau handed out popcorn for everyone to listen to and sip. Ha Vang continues to show movies regularly every week, not because the past has been completely cleaned up, but because the past has finally been shouldered and preserved by many people.

Linh posted the new show schedule on the theater door, and each movie had a line clearly stating the source of funding and the person in charge. A boy asked why movies also needed funding. She told everyone who helped the light appear on the screen, then the boy said next time he would donate batteries for the theater's backup flashlight.

Linh added a line at the end of the calendar: "If you want to contribute, please ask before sending." Hau said that sentence lost surprise and lacked the necessary drama. Ms. Nam said the truth is not a gift box that needs a bow, it needs to be given properly and with consensus.

A few days after the outdoor screening, the old lady who brought the photo returned to the theater, this time with her two elderly sons. They wanted to give the photo back to the theater for display, instead of keeping it private in their home. Linh hesitated to accept, afraid of taking away a precious memento of their family, but the old lady said that the photo did not just belong to her family anymore, it belonged to everyone who was saved that night, and the most worthy place to keep it was the very place where the story began.

Linh received the photo, placed it in a small glass frame hanging at the entrance of the lobby, next to a caption stating the name of the giver and the context of the photo, carefully as if mounting an irreplaceable piece of history on the wall. She invited the old woman and her two children to stay and watch the show that evening as guests of honor, reserving three seats in the front row. When the lights went out and the movie started, Linh watched from the projection room, saw those three people sitting quietly together, holding hands tightly, and she understood that the work she was doing was not just repairing a building, but also stitching up the tears in the hearts of so many families that had been separated by that flood, silent tears that no paperwork could fully record.

That night, after seeing off her guests, Linh wrote a short line in her diary: "There are gifts that do not come from money, but from people choosing to trust a place to place their memories." She closed the book, looked out the window where the moonlight was shining on the sparkling river, and for the first time in many weeks, she felt that the burden on her shoulders had been partly relieved, even though the road ahead was still long and many things were yet to be resolved.